Part 1: How to effectively align your children's ministry curriculum
Children learn best when multiple voices are teaching them the same thing. By aligning your children’s ministry curriculum you can help the next generation come to know Christ.
Cam Harte, children’s minister at St Luke’s Anglican Church, Miranda, shares how aligning content across midweek and Sunday programs has engaged families in discipling their children.
In children’s ministry, it can be hard to align strategy, curriculum and programming for our many ministries. With churches often running several meetings for different age groups across the week, children are learning multiple Bible stories, and this doesn’t even consider their own family discipleship!
Now, please don’t mishear me, children hearing and learning about Jesus and the Bible is a wonderful thing. But wouldn’t it be great if there was also an alignment between the content that we teach across our midweek and Sunday programs and the way in which we seek to engage families in the discipling of their children?
This is exactly the challenge we took on this year at St Luke’s, Miranda, making significant strategic changes to the children’s ministry program. There were three questions that directed much of our thinking as we sought to enhance and strengthen our ministry to children and their families. These were:
What are the most important things for children to hear and engage with throughout their time within a local church’s children’s ministry program?
What is the most effective way for children to be discipled and grow in their love and knowledge of Jesus?
How can we most effectively partner with families in raising the next generation to grow in their love and knowledge of Jesus?
After much research, prayer and discussion we embraced a principle that we call One Voice through an entire week of programming. In practice, this looks like teaching one big idea throughout the week across all our children’s ministry programs. This means that all kids, from the youngest children to those in upper primary, are reading the same passage of Scripture and then applying it in age-appropriate ways.
The One Voice strategy rises out of a conviction that children learn best when multiple voices are teaching them the same thing. That is to say, when parents and carers, children’s program leaders and small group leaders are aligned in what they are teaching each week, kids have the greatest opportunity not only to learn and recall information but to grow in a deepening relationship with Jesus.
Our children’s ministry now begins on Monday, when parents and carers are updated via an app with the Bible passage and the big idea for the week, along with a couple of questions to begin a conversation at home. Children then come to a midweek program, both preschool and primary school-aged, where they hear the same story taught from the Bible in an engaging and fun large-group style setting.
On Sunday morning the children hear the story for the third time. This is where they dig deeper into the passage and apply it to their context in the small-group setting; as children from preschool through to primary school meet with the same group of kids their age and a consistent leader to unpack the Bible passage and then work hard at applying it to their lives. Each of these environments (home, large-group and small-group) presents the same truth of Scripture using different presentation styles and voices and allowing kids to engage with the Word of God in multiple ways throughout the week.
Of course, not every child comes to every program, so each group is able to stand alone in both content and style of teaching, but we have this strategy, where curriculum, programming and learning environments are aligned in content and vision, presents the most effective way to disciple children in partnership with parents and families.
This may sound like a lot of work, and perhaps you may think this is unrealistic in your current context. Indeed, it was a major shift for us at St Luke’s from our previous programming, but all of these changes have arisen from our prayerful consideration of those first three questions we proposed at the start. These were the answers that guided us in our implementation of the One Voice strategy:
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Part 2: How to effectively align your children's ministry curriculum
See how an integrated children’s ministry program and curriculum have had a positive impact on the engagement of families in discipleship and the faith of children at St Luke’s, Miranda.
What is of most importance for children to hear and engage with throughout their time within a local church’s children’s ministry program?
We want children to know Jesus and to leave our children’s ministry program with an understanding of God’s love for them as seen through the entire biblical story.
What is the most effective way for children to be discipled and grow in their love and knowledge of Jesus?
Children grow most effectively in their discipleship of Jesus when the church and their family are saying the same thing and when they hear the same message from multiple voices (their parents and carers, and their children’s ministry leaders).
How can we most effectively partner with families in raising the next generation to grow in their love and knowledge of Jesus?
We want to be equipping families to be the first to speak the gospel into the lives of their children. When we first implemented the program, one of the biggest decisions we had to make was whether we started the week on a Sunday or a Monday. A Sunday would mean that our children’s ministry introduced the idea and parents followed up with discussion, and vice versa on Monday. We decided to start our week on a Monday so that we would give primacy to families to speak first, meaning our children’s ministry comes alongside families to reinforce what they have already said.
In Part 2 I’ll share more about why you should consider implementing an integrated children’s ministry program, and about the great things that have happened within our children’s ministry this year, by the grace of God, through the One Voice strategy.
I do believe that these changes have enabled us to be more effective in our discipling of young people, in the raising of leaders to lead the next generation, and in our partnership with families to see a generation grow in their love and knowledge of Jesus. I’d love you to consider how you could use this strategy, or elements from it, to support the children you disciple, to help them come to know Christ.